WASHINGTON (BLOOMBERG) - President Joe Biden called on the US Senate to change its rules to allow a simple majority to pass voting rights legislation, saying in Atlanta that GOP-backed state laws threaten democracy.

"To protect our democracy, I support changing the Senate rules whichever way they need to be changed," Biden said on Tuesday (Jan 11) at Morehouse College, after visiting the crypt of Martin Luther King Jr and the Baptist church where he was a pastor. "Let the majority prevail."

Biden blamed former president Donald Trump's false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election for GOP-controlled legislatures passing laws limiting voting access.

"The goal of the former president and his allies is to disenfranchise anyone who votes against them. Simple as that."

The speech came as Biden has shifted from focusing on passing his tax and spending plan to addressing new state laws that opponents say will disenfranchise voters, and will dim Democrats' prospects of keeping control of the House and Senate.

Republicans oppose the voting-rights legislation, which has languished in the Senate.